


5 + 1 Time Keyleth Druid Crafts Hair Accessories

by lunacyandpirates (LunacyAndPirates)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Chroma Conclave Arc, Druid Crafting things, F/M, Fun buns, Keyleth is adorable, Pre-Stream (Critical Role), first time posting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25834102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunacyAndPirates/pseuds/lunacyandpirates
Summary: Sometimes being a Druid means you get to be creative with your hair accessories, what's the point otherwise? Featuring fun buns and daisies.Spans from pre-stream to the conclusion of the Chroma Conclave arc, but not detail heavy or necessarily canon.
Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	5 + 1 Time Keyleth Druid Crafts Hair Accessories

**One**

The first time Keyleth does it nobody notices; they’re too busy fighting against the wolves, the weather and the terrain.

There had been torrential rain and howling winds for nearly two days straight and the even under the cover of the forest the ground was utterly saturated and rapidly turning into a thick sludgy mud as the group fought off a group of seven or eight desperate wolves in the darkness of night.

After one spell too many arching wide due to her being unable to properly see past her drenched and heavy hair that the wind constantly blew harshly into her face Keyleth thrust her hands up to gather as much of it as she could and Druid Crafted a number of slender but sturdy vines to hold it back.

It was messy, rushed and not ideal, but then again it was going to take hours to sort the knots, tangles, leaves, twigs and mud from it anyway, so adding vines was not going to cause any additional issues really.

After the fight had ended, and the group had found shelter in a shallow, and thankfully unoccupied, cave Keyleth had mourned the lack of proper bathing facilities as she broke away the vines and dug a thick wooden comb from her bag. She loved her long red hair, but sometimes she wondered whether it was worth the trouble it brought her.

**Two**

The second time Keyleth used Druid Craft to keep her hair in check was when the group, newly rebranded from the SHITs to Vox Machina, had come across a stinking pool of rotting vegetation and possibly a few animals.

It was also the home of a very large beast that a nearby logging camp said was hunting members of the logging crew.

This time she was determined not to end up spending several hours washing sludge from the bottom half of her hair, so she braided it as tightly as she could and looped it up on itself before Crafting vines to hold it in place and out of the ‘water’.

It was nowhere as neat as Vex’s, but it was serviceable. Vex had even admired her creative thinking and Vax had spent a good minute or so inspecting her work from rather too close in Keyleth’s embarrassed opinion.

The beast had attempted to drag her under the water, leaving her soaked in foul smelling green-brown sludge from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.

If she had spent an hour crying as she scrubbed at her hair in a river nobody was going to admit to noticing.

**Three**

The third time had merely been for the fun of it.

Vox Machina had been slowly winding their way between small towns and she had found a new flower, it was a lovely shade of buttery yellow, the petals wide and soft. Naturally she had spent an hour studying a couple of uprooted plants, learning their nature and teasing their life cycle from them.

After that she had pulled the front sections of hair over her shoulders and proceeded to braid them, Crafting her newly found flowers into them as she went and using vines with small white flowers to tie the braids off.

Vax would never admit to watching her intently, but Vex noticed.

**Four**

The fourth time was during a sweltering night as she took watch.

Again, she was questioning whether her love of her hair outweighed her current state; sweat was running down the back of her neck and soaking her shirt as the mass of thick red hair lay heavily across her back.

She looked about at her travelling companions and spotted Pike, her hair still up in what Grog affectionately called ‘fun buns’.

Keyleth needed little more motivation to remove her antlered circlet, dig the comb out of her bag and begin the process of dividing her own hair, carefully collecting as much hair as was possible into each half, then twisting one side at a time and growing thicker bark covered vine webs around the coiled buns.

The resulting hairstyle was weird but very pleasant as a small breeze reached her neck and back, aided by a few Gust cantrips.

Grog and Pike were thrilled to see her hair when they woke in the morning, Pike claiming that this must make them best friends now (before reassuring Grog that Keyleth was her _best friend_ , but he was still her _bestest buddy_ ).

Vax prayed that nobody noticed him spending far longer than he should have trying to put his boots on the wrong feet that morning.

**Five**

The fifth time Keyleth used Druid Craft on her hair was for the Winter’s Crest festival in Whitestone.

She had weaved winter plants through her hair and around her circlet as an elegant and elaborate kind of flower crown as well as using it to keep the winter winds from whipping it around all day.

She was especially proud of the mistletoe she had coaxed to hang from the left antler, it was a notoriously tricky plant to persuade, so having some on her antler was a great treat, even if it was a poisonous one.

Percy had made a point to compliment her creation after the rather disastrous encounter with Vax by the Suntree. He had asked her to explain her choices and where the various plants came from.

She appreciated his attempts to make her feel better, even if he was mildly formal about doing so.

Soon after a small child had waddled up and exclaimed “Flowers pretty!” as a flushed woman gave chase.

Before the woman could start apologising Keyleth had grinned, reached out and created a small, safe, crown of white flowers for the child.

This had proven her downfall as soon she had a queue of children all wanting a crown. Percy had just laughed when Keyleth looked to him for help.

**Plus One**

Vox Machina, and many of their allies still in Whitestone, had decided to use a rare pleasantly sunny day to celebrate the end of the Chroma Conclave with a picnic on a patch of newly restored lawn outside the castle.

The kitchens had done wonders putting together small foods and a few of the staff had found some old picnic blankets backed with tarpaulin which people now lounged about on, breathing freely after months of stress and constant activity.

Keyleth and Vax had claimed the edge of one of the blankets, mostly so that Keyleth could run her hands across the grass and slowly encourage a spreading patch of daisies to bloom.

Vax had laid his head on her lap and was watching the idle movements of her hand and the soft swaying of plants as they responded to her magic, a number of the nearby daisies stretching as far as they could to follow.

“We used to make daisy crowns when we were little, before we left for Syngorn.” The comment was meant to sound idle, but Keyleth knew him better than that by now. It was Vax’s way of sharing memories that held a strong emotion, though quite what that emotion was sometimes eluded her. This time though she was sure it was an innocent content, happy even, memory.

She hummed and brought her hands to his loose hair, carefully combing her fingers through it to avoid the beaded braids by his ear.

Closing her eyes Keyleth let her magic flow through her fingers, imagining the stems of daisies twisting into the dark hair and around each other, creating a mental image of an overly elaborate coronet of daisies ranging in size from small dots of flowers to a few palm sized ones.

When she opened her eyes again she had to bite her lip not to laugh; her daisies had taken the image in her head and added some of their own flair with shades of pink and sky blue scattered like jewels among the white and a particularly ambitious flower had even attempted a multihued pattern among its own petals.

Vax was looking up at her, his eyes softly crinkled as he grinned: even if he couldn’t see her work, he knew she must have done something spectacular; he couldn’t see how it could be anything but.

“You look like the King of daisies now.” She smiled back at him.

“I’ll happily wear a crown of daisies every day for the rest of my life if it means you keep smiling like that.” He reached up and put soft fingers on her cheek, brushing over the blush that was rapidly spreading across them.

“Good gods you two are sickening!” Vex had a barely concealed grin on her face as she and Trinket passed by, the bear without armour but with saddlebags of wine bottles and mugs if Keyleth wasn’t mistaken.

The daisy crown lasted until nightfall, after which a number of the flowers found their way into a heavy book on medical herbs, and the rest ended up scattered about their shared room.


End file.
